i've had so much trouble with my motu ultralite mk4. i'm on my second one that motu sent me and it crashes all the time and there is distortion and crackling. i've spent a year exhaustively troubleshooting this with motu and their support isn't able to fix it and i've just spent too much time on this at this point.

it's too bad because this sound card is great when it works and is like the only thing in its segment:

-- 8 channels of I/O-- ESS sabre converter-- $600.

Everything else I've seen that has this much I/O and a good converter is way more expensive.

Universal audio 8 is on sale for $1200 for black friday but I can't really justify the price. Also skeptical of the UAD hardware DSP stuff, I think I've got enough plugins at this point and I don't know why I would buy more that's locked to their hardware platform. though people do love it...

the UA apollo looks nice too and honestly I only use more than 2 in / 2 out like once a month but I just really want the options to have lots of hardware plugged in and use some external FX when the mood strikes.

Apogee, RME, Prism, Antelope are very expensive too.

So, do you guys have some ideas for interfaces with good converters, at least 6 I/O and under $1000?

Also, I really suspect that supposed differences in quality of converters is like 95% a tossup. I have pretty good speakers in a treated room and I just never really noticed appreciable differences when using different sound cards. I'm not, like, an experienced mastering engineer in a perfect room with impeccable monitoring, maybe that's the user who can really appreciate this. thoughts ?

MOTU interfaces are notorious for what you discribe.... Too bad for you it turns out you have spend more money.....

When UA stopped with UAD1, all support stopped for it - what I heard (maybe I'm wrong) - so I would not spend my money on an UAD2 system. It's a pitty, 'cause there fx's are very good, as well as their interfaces.

RME is very good too, but it comes with a cost.

Have you got ADAT I/O on your ultralite? If so, a Babyface from RME could do the job using your Ultralite as an ADAT AD convertor instead as an audiointerface. Maybe that is possible. I mean routing the eight inputs to an ADAT out, and using the ADAT in for syncing.

A RME Babyface is reasonable priced, and could this way do the job maybe.......

Hey mate - have you looked at any of the Focusrite stuff? The 18i20 is great value (in my opinion). The 18i20 should fit your budget, and has quite a few inputs for future use, too! I prefer much more to my Apogee Duet.

@shift gorden I've had 2 focusrite cards in the past stop working and support did nothing for me both time because I was literally days outside my warranty those experiences soured me on focusrite but it was a while ago and I have heard positive things recently...

@miyaru Yeah, don't really vibe with UAD. Dont like being locked into a platform for plugins. Also looked more into the DSP stuff and those chips in the soundcards are like 10 years old. It seems like a really bad value. About ADAT, interesting thought but I'd be pretty worried about using the MOTU at all for stability's sake? Haven't really needed to use ADAT before so I've not so familiar.

I actually have an update from MOTU. they say it's a known issue with Core Audio on macOS. But other manufacturer's sound cards work just fine on my system. Soooo.... yeah pretty frustrating.

i've had so much trouble with my motu ultralite mk4. i'm on my second one that motu sent me and it crashes all the time and there is distortion and crackling. i've spent a year exhaustively troubleshooting this with motu and their support isn't able to fix it and i've just spent too much time on this at this point.

it's too bad because this sound card is great when it works and is like the only thing in its segment:

-- 8 channels of I/O-- ESS sabre converter-- $600.

Everything else I've seen that has this much I/O and a good converter is way more expensive.

Universal audio 8 is on sale for $1200 for black friday but I can't really justify the price. Also skeptical of the UAD hardware DSP stuff, I think I've got enough plugins at this point and I don't know why I would buy more that's locked to their hardware platform. though people do love it...

the UA apollo looks nice too and honestly I only use more than 2 in / 2 out like once a month but I just really want the options to have lots of hardware plugged in and use some external FX when the mood strikes.

Apogee, RME, Prism, Antelope are very expensive too.

So, do you guys have some ideas for interfaces with good converters, at least 6 I/O and under $1000?

Also, I really suspect that supposed differences in quality of converters is like 95% a tossup. I have pretty good speakers in a treated room and I just never really noticed appreciable differences when using different sound cards. I'm not, like, an experienced mastering engineer in a perfect room with impeccable monitoring, maybe that's the user who can really appreciate this. thoughts ?

Wow that sucks and I thought about getting one. Maybe there will be a deal from a vendor on the RME Babyface Pro.